“No,” he growled. “We started this together, fifty-fifty. We are not ending it unless both of us want out. And I say no.”
“Noel.” My voice cracked, and his face fell.
“Damn it, Aspen.” He dipped his head and came in to kiss me. I set my hand against his chest.
We stared at each other, eye to eye, both of us breathing hard as my little cat clock on the wall with the swishing tail and shifting eyes ticked back and forth, filling the silence.
“Fine.” His fingers eased off my arms as he took a step back. But his eyes remained intent, still full of fight. “You take your break. Take however long you want to think about it, or whatever shit you think you need to do. But I’m not. I’m still in this one hundred percent, and I’m not going anywhere until you realize we belong together despite everything there is against us.”
Without waiting for me to respond, he marched for the front door and jerked it open. His footsteps pounded on the front porch, growing fainter as he left. Holding my fingers to my lips, I tried not to cry.
Noel cared so much he was going to fight for us no matter what. It made me love him more than ever, which broke my heart even harder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Never underestimate a pretty little liar.” - Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars
ASPEN
Four grueling, awful, incredibly long days passed. And I didn’t see Noel once. I think he was torturing me on purpose. He knew my willpower was nil. He knew I’d have to see him soon. And honestly, tomorrow—when he walked into my classroom for Early American Literature—couldn’t come soon enough. I needed my Noel fix. Now.
I tapped my fingers against my chin, unable to concentrate on my work as I stared longingly at the cell phone I’d set on the corner of my desk. When I started to reach for it, thinking I could send him one little text, just to say hello, I mentally slapped myself and snapped my fingers back to my keyboard.
No. Bad Aspen.
I turned my attention to the screen of my computer where I was entering scores into the campus’s grading system, and couldn’t focus on a single thing. I hated entering scores. I might have to go completely paperless just to bypass the monotony of score entering.
The only class so far where I’d decided to go paperless was Noel’s. And it was going surprisingly well. After we’d started our relationship, I’d had the students in his class turn in their next essay electronically. That way, I didn’t see a name when I read their papers. I just read them as fairly as possible, assigned the score when I was done, and that was that, they were instantly in the system. That part, I loved.
The scary part came when I realized I’d had no idea what letter I’d given my own boyfriend, because I hadn’t been able to discern which paper had been his. After I’d finished with everyone in the class, Noel and I had checked his score together. I think I nearly squeezed his fingers off I was so nervous by the time we saw he’d gotten a B.
I almost bawled because I hadn’t given him an A like I’d hoped I would. He was the one who’d laughed and pulled me into a hug, telling me it was okay. He was making an overall high C in the class. All he had to do was pull another B in the last essay, and he’d be fine. He’d sounded so sure of himself I had relaxed. But, God, I’d had no idea dating one of my students would put this much stress on my job. When we’d begun this thing, I’d been confident I could separate school and personal life. Except I couldn’t. I wanted to give Noel the biggest A possible.
A throat cleared, jerking me from my daydreaming. “Dr. Kavanagh?”
I lifted my face from my computer screen to find a pretty redhead standing in the doorway of my office. She looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure where I’d seen her before. Swiveling my chair to face her, I pasted on a smile, always thrilled when a student sought me out. “Yes?”
She bit her lip, looking a little nervous. “I’m Marci Bennett. I’d really like to talk to you about my grade.”
“Okay. Come on in.” Since I was already in the system, I quickly typed in her name to pull up her file. “You’re in World Masterpieces, right?”
“That’s right.” She stepped inside and shut the door behind her. It caught me off guard because students typically didn’t do that when I met with them. Usually, we kept the door open, or I was the one to close it. Only Noel had ever done that to me, which only made me more uneasy about Marci doing it. But I shrugged off my apprehensions and continued to smile.
As soon as she seated herself, her demeanor changed. Her coyness melted away to be replaced by a smug little smirk. Confused by the transformation, I skimmed my gaze over her, taking in the entire picture. Her hair was her one shining feature, but it was so brilliant a red I wondered if she dyed it. Her boobs looked big, but again, they were nothing help from a good bra couldn’t make. Most everything about her seemed fake and enhanced.